


Heavy Game of Cardiff

by merryghoul



Series: Suzanne Costello: Life is All [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Future, BBC Sherlock Fusion, Bondage, Canon - Tie-in Novel, Children of Earth Compliant, Community: hc_bingo, F/M, Gen, Gore, Hypnotism, Knives, Minor Character Death, Photographs, Psychological Torture, Racism, Sexual Content, Suicide, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:04:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/pseuds/merryghoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>You're a fugitive on the run.  And you're not above killing witnesses.  What do you do to keep those witnesses from speaking?  In this excerpt from </em>Suzie Costello: Life Is All, <em>a fictionalized account of a West Country serial killer who terrorized Cardiff during the mid to late aughties, </em>SUSAN HARPER <em>(no relation) tells the brutal tale of Suzie's final Cardiff "alien" rampage in October 2009</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy Game of Cardiff

**Author's Note:**

> For hc_bingo's April amnesty challenge.
> 
> N.B.: Tom Cutler is a character that appears in two licensed Torchwood novels. He never appeared in the television series proper.
> 
> The texts are all shown through Suzie's iPhone.

Heavy Game of Cardiff

Originally published in _British Gentlemen's Quarterly_ , August 2013.

_You're a fugitive on the run.  And you're not above killing witnesses.  What do you do to keep those witnesses from speaking?  In this excerpt from_ Suzie Costello: Life Is All, _a fictionalized account of a West Country serial killer who terrorized Cardiff during the mid to late aughties,_ SUSAN HARPER _(no relation) tells the brutal tale of Suzie's final Cardiff "alien" rampage in October 2009_

_  
_

DI TOM CUTLER HAD FOUND ME IN THE HUB.  After the government put a bomb in Jack Harkness to kill him—you and I know that's nearly impossible—it was a shambles, since Jack took the whole damn Hub with him.  Whole levels had collapsed in it and bricks had smashed computers and other equipment.

What, really, was the point of Torchwood?  It was founded because the Queen had problems with the Doctor and someone named "Rose Tyler."  (I'm not sure if she ever existed at all.  She has a birth certificate—and it's dated from _1986,_ not 1879, unless the birth certificate has a glaring typo on it—but there's no trace of her on Earth.  She's disappeared.  In fact, a good chunk of her friends and family have disappeared.)  Did Torchwood really save anyone from this great alien menace that was in space?  For all I know, Torchwood caused more human suffering than it did saving.  And that includes its members.  And now the government couldn't continue Torchwood if they tried.  Torchwood One was lost in the "Battle of Canary Wharf," Torchwood Two died when the only person running it died in 2009, and Torchwood Four is lost.  If the government gives a shit about Torchwood, they'd have to start it again from scratch, and they sure as hell aren't doing it now.

I stood near the Vault where they placed the dead bodies of Torchwood Three members.  It was the only structure intact in the Hub.

"You want to know how I did it," I said to Cutler.

"Yes."

"You might want to sit down for this story.  It's a long one."  I looked at my watch.  "9:45. You said they were going to blow this place up at 10:30?"

"Yes."

"We've got time.  Too bad you're not going to live long enough to tell them their bomb placement skills are shit."  I pulled my knife out of my boot the way I usually do—crook my right leg and grab the knife I under five seconds.  (I had an assistant time me before I killed him.)   "And don't even try to think about a takeover, because I will gut and bleed you like a hog.  It'll defeat the point of your suffering, but I'll do it." 

Cutler took out a cigarette, lit it and sat down, pissed and defeated.  I suppressed the need to do that evil villain laugh you hear in the movies as he sat down.  The following is what I confessed to him.

 

I ended up going back to Cardiff because my boss—my _real_ boss, not Jack Harkness—Jim Moriarty wanted to make sure that, with my temporary day job blown to pieces by the government, I was dead to Torchwood's eyes.  That way, I could safely live in the UK and not have Torchwood looking for me.

Jim saw the blown-up Hub on BBC News. He called me when I was in Naples, looking for an old assistant of mine, Max Tresilian. He aided me in my previous "death" for Torchwood, and he was able to escape because Torchwood is as attentive as a dog. Thing is, he was supposed to report to me after he escaped Torchwood, but he never did. I spent a few years commuting from Cardiff and London to Italy and South Africa to find him, but I never could find the bastard. He knew where to hide from me—places even I couldn't outrun or climb. I remember hearing my mobile phone ring.

_"Colonel!"_  

"Yes, Jim?"  I cleared my throat and started blushing even though I was alone in a room in the Hotel Palazzo Decumani.  Jim and I had grown intimate ever since the last faked death for Torchwood.  I'd be doing tasks for him in the UK and Italy and he'd stop by and chat every once in a while to check on his second-in-command.  Sometimes things grew intimate during our meetings.  I think it was because I confessed that I didn't feel powerful, always haunted by my father beating me up and bullies taunting me for being mixed race, as if I could pick who I wanted to be born to.   He made me feel powerful when I needed to feel powerful.  Cliché, I know, but Jim was my rock. 

I started touching my skin, imagining Jim's hands on me.  I missed the feel of his fingers on my skin. 

_"Guess what I saw on the news, Colonel?  Bloody Torchwood."_

"Torchwood?  Are they looking for me?"

_"No, no.  They're all too stupid to look for you now, remember?  Where you used to work for Jack Harkness at, that stinky underground lair you called 'The Hub?'  It got blown up."_

"Blown up?"

_"Guess the government was pissed off that they were doing a piss-poor job of attempting to save the world."_

"What do you want me to do, Jim?"             

_"You told me all these people took a date rape drug Torchwood called 'Retcon.'"_

"Yeah.  It was basically a placebo that didn't do anything but knock you out.  Torchwood willed you to forget.  That's how the drug worked.  Probably got a recipe from a medicine man back in 1879."

_"There are people out there that might see you and get my web in trouble. We're going to have to make them remember you.  Then you can tell them a bedtime story and kiss them goodnight."_

"You want me to kill anyone who's ever had a personal encounter with me."

Jim laughed.  _"Time for you to leave that fucking shithole in Wales, Suzie.  I'll send you a list of men.  You pick who you want to help you, and I'll send them to Wales tonight.  You can't kill all those witnesses alone, can you?"_

"Of course not."

" _I'll also have men to move you out of your old Welsh quarters daily until you tell them to stop.  You'll get a shiny new flat the police won't know about to kill in.  You're in charge of Cardiff.  I won't interfere unless you need a few things you can't find there."_

"Yes, Jim."

_"Oh, and Colonel?  Rip their hearts out for me, will you?  Those poor little sacrificial lambs.  We'll figure out a plan to cover it up later.  Those Welsh people, they'll believe anything you tell them.  We'll just say… you're possessed by some evil alien device that makes you suck people into some darkness.  Suck, suck.  And then we'll put it on a few sites and they'll_ really _think you're an evil alien from Bath."_

I laughed.  "That's how you want those bastards to remember me?"

_"Of course, Colonel.  You are a legend.  You deserve to go out with a tall tale."_ Jim kissed the phone.  _"Miss you."_

"Miss you too, Jim."  I kissed the phone and hung up.

The hunt for Max would have to wait.  It was time for me to come back and finish business in Cardiff.  I immediately booked a ticket from Naples to Manchester.  From there I'd go back to Cardiff, where the fun would begin.

 

The men Jim sent for me and I was ready to attack in October.  My stuff I'd accumulated in my real Cardiff flat was packed up and sent to Jim's suite in London, and I was set up in the murder flat with some basics.  The only thing missing was my hunting knife—I lost it while I was looking for Max in Milan.  I'd already complained about it to Jim.  I assumed he wouldn't replace the thing, and I was stuck with kitchen knives. 

Never mind the missing knife.  It was time to start killing.

On the first day, I wore this hospital gown—it was similar to the gown I was dressed in while I was in a trance, merely pretending to be dead, back in 2007, when I was "shot" multiple times by Jack Harkness.  (I sincerely hope Tosh or Gwen dressed me.  Judging by their reactions, I guess Ianto dressed me.  Sigh.)  I snuck back into the Hub around 5 AM.  An assistant and I moved around some debris in a stairwell that was in the Hub and led out of a back entrance far from the excavation site entrance about two hours earlier.  A lot of hard work, and some sore muscles, but it was worth it.  Jim had heard about the Cardiff police moving into the Hub to investigate the bombing, so we decided to create a diversion there first, to let Cardiff know their resident bogeyman was back.

I stripped the guy's clothing from his body, making sure the glass was still in his liver, and took his outfit, using his helmet to cover my hair. 

And then I had this daft idea.  Since Jim and I were making me "the alien from Bath," why not pop this guy's eyes out? 

I didn't want to pull the glass out of the guy's body—it was a work of art.  I found a piece of metal in the Hub that was sharp and loose enough for my needs.  Within seconds, the eyes were puddles of ooze, flotsam and jetsam.  Oh, and blood.  Can't forget the blood.

I walked out from the excavation site entrance. From there, one of my assistants picked me up from Bute Place, in front of the Millennium Centre. Believe it or not, I think I passed by DI Cutler before being picked up from Bute Place. I texted Jim.

 

The Colonel

Just killed this policeman

in the Plass with a shard

of glass.  (Poetry!) Even

stole his suit.  SC

Ooh, Suzie, you naughty

girl with your dirty

poems, stop making me

horny.  Grab your key at

St. Marks.  Third pew

from the front, near aisle. 

Claim your prize at the

deposit boxes.  JM

Jim, before you go, I'll

need some slush

powder.  SC

 

What are you planning?

STOP MAKING ME

HARD COLONEL .  JM

I'm popping eyes out of

victims.  Will need some

quickie gel.  I'm the Alien

of Bath, like you told me I

was.  I'm just helping my

wax dummy and the

legend, that's all.  SC

You're lucky Jim can fix

anything for you.  JM

 

After I retrieved the key from St. Mark's, I went to the deposit boxes.  Inside the box was a knife with a note attached to it: a smiley face and the letters JM.  I removed the note and pulled the knife out.  It was a UK Special Forces Knife, made in America (ironically) by Blackhawk!  (Yeah, that's the company's name, Blackhawk!  Americans are strange people, aren't they?)  It came with a sheath that, when I got back to the flat Jim and I rented to make murder in, I could attach it to my boot.  I pulled out the knife, all 11 inches of it.  It had a steel blade with a satin finish on it, so I could see the evidence of my kills.  I held the knife in the light and let it shine, grinning at Jim's gift.  He knew I lost my old hunting knife looking for Max in Italy.  Not only did he replace the knife, he gave me a better knife.  That's when I knew Jim had my heart.

For now, the Special Forces knife had to stick out awkwardly in my back pocket.  And, with a knife that big hanging out of my pocket, I couldn't have any witnesses.  They might think I'm a thief or something. 

I decided to test the knife out on the deposit box assistant.  It worked.  It even worked on minute human details such as eyeballs.

 

Torchwood Three knew who I was.  I had to make sure Torchwood Three was out of the picture.  Thing is, I didn't know whether all of them were alive or not.  So I made it my objective to sneak a backup mole and I into the South Wales Police Department.  The government was working with the police over the Hub.  Maybe they had the government files of Torchwood there.

First, I decided to cut my hair.  I love my black hair cascading down my shoulders, but hair gets heavy and unwieldy if you keep growing it.  So I cut my hair to shoulder length.  I only lost a few inches, that's all.  I've cut more—I've had my curls cut close to my head, and months later it grew past my shoulders.  It'll grow back.  Then I coloured my hair—lightened it by a couple of shades to a warm brown.  I needed a change.  Jim would appreciate that change when we met again.  If I hated the brown, I could wait until it faded out of my hair, and my hair would be black again.  And, also, it would take longer for the cops to discover my murders, if they did discover them at all.

Over brandy, I spent the night creating a persona known as "Sue Costa."  It's the thrill of pissing off the police that causes me to choose aliases that are close to my real name.  I want them to attempt to come and find me, but in the end, it won't matter, because I'll disappear just like the ghost I am.  For me, it's no fun to pick an alias that would guarantee the police wouldn't arrest me for a few months, like, say, Amala Chirimar.

Within hours the mole and I had fake secretarial jobs at some made up place in Bath, news articles, LinkedIn, the works.  I even sent a few emails.  My background looked legit.  I went to bed.  The next few days were going to be exciting for me, I could feel it.

 

One of my henchmen, who I will not identify by name, is a professional hypnotist in the UK.  (We will call him "The Hypnotist.")  He'd dress up as an electrician, step inside the victims' homes and suggest they kill themselves after remembering Torchwood Three and me.  And, as an added touch, these people should write "I REMEMBER" with whatever they can find before killing themselves. 

You thought I was going to stab everyone in this story, right?  No, that's humanly impossible.  Besides, the stab stab murder routine gets a bit boring after a while.

Let's take, for example, the case of Rebecca Devlin.  When she was younger, Torchwood saved her from a _Ghost Rider_ -cabbie.  Like Nicolas Cage was driving a taxi, yeah.  I had a long list of witnesses of Torchwood and she was at the top of it.  I looked her up, found her in some database, and directed the Hypnotist to go to Devlin's new home. 

The Hypnotist pretended to check on some faulty wiring on the street Devlin was living on.  Once he arrived at Devlin's home—and luckily for me, she _was_ at home, with kids—he sat her down on the couch, made her fall asleep, and told her the following:

"When you see Suzie Costello"—and the Hypnotist flashed a picture of me in front of Devlin's face—"you will remember Torchwood.  You will remember what Torchwood forced you to forget.  And then, you will write a message—the words 'I REMEMBER.'  Write it with whatever you can grab.  And then, you will blind and kill yourself."

The Hypnotist then directed Devlin to wake up. He said he found no problems with the wiring in her house and left. Her kids didn't realize anything was going wrong.

The next day, in one of the Cardiff tabloids, I found a nice article about Rebecca Devlin's death.  She wrote I REMEMBER on a dry erase board, blinded herself and stabbed herself in the stomach.  I did feel bad about reading that she left behind children.  I do have somewhat of a soft spot for kids.  My father told me I was worthless because I was born female, and as a child, people were calling me Paki despite my mixed heritage.  No child should go through what I went through.  But I was pleased with the kill.

Andrew Murray and Eryn Bunting (lovely woman, left me a check to steal) died in similar fashion.  The Hypnotist would visit them and I'd try to bump into their path.  And all those lovely people left I REMEMBER before they died, and they all blinded and killed themselves. 

And you know the best part about these murders?  The police could never prove they were hits because they were _subliminal_ hits, not those messy Mafia hits on telly and in movies that get you whacked.  No one could pin these murders on my assistants and I.  They're still some of my favourite kills I've ordered to this day.

 

I had managed to be the "liaison" (in other words, secretary) of a Commander Elwood Jackson.  He liked wearing army suits.  Other than that, he was quite forgettable.  I performed a show around him: flirt with him (it didn't get romantic, like with DI Cutler), grab some coffee for him, repeat.  It's rather boring stuff.  I mean, I didn't go to Oxford to become a secretary.  (I went to become an engineer and to kill my father.)  But anything to find out the whereabouts of bloody Torchwood Three, I guess.

After the first day on the job as the Commander's liaison, I went out that night. Put on some pants (sometimes I wear pants instead of skirts, you know), the hunting boots (okay, they're black thigh high boots) from Ralph Lauren, and a top I didn't have to wear a bra with. Then I went out to a club to relax and eventually engage in some murder business. I took an assistant with me. We didn't come in the club together. If needed, I wanted him to dispose of any witnesses. I really wanted another kill for myself, since most of my assistants would do the killing, and it would still be a while before I could find the whereabouts of Torchwood Three to confirm their whereabouts. Maybe working at Torchwood claimed their lives for nothing. I didn't know yet.

To my surprise and luck I spotted a Welsh Jack Harkness impersonator.  (He didn't know he looked like Jack Harkness, but he really did.)  I took him home.

Meanwhile, I texted the assistant in the club to grab the bartender who served me a beer.  The assistant grabbed the bartender—I think his name was Jason—and snatched him from the club.

The assistant said he was burned alive in the Crymlyn Burrows incinerator at Swansea.  I was pleased.

 

Meanwhile, I fucked the Jack Harkness impersonator.  I knew Jim wouldn't mind.  I wanted the Jack Harkness impersonator to feel comfortable before I killed him.  Then I woke him up.  I put on a robe and tied the man up to my bed.  It was okay—I was going to sleep in the guest room after I killed the Jack Harkness impersonator.  I put some tape over his mouth too—I like seeing my prey panic after they see me.

"At the heart of it all," I told him, "I still like to talk to people sometimes."  (This is true, by the way.  It's how Jim and I became lovers, after all.)  "Thank you for keeping me company tonight.  I'd be a bit battier if I didn't have someone in my life now and then.

"Do you remember about…three years ago, when this serial killer terrorized Cardiff?  Stabbed some people with a three-bladed knife that could perforate a human heart in all its chambers?"

The man screamed a muffled "No" and shook his head.

"That was me.  Hold on."

I put on my hunting boots and strapped the UK Special Forces knife on my right boot.

"One of my old assistants and I threw the three-bladed knife in the quay.  No one will ever care about the fake one enough to find the real one in the quay.  The people I used to work for when I was in Cardiff, Torchwood, they were careless.  Spent more time bragging about their victories than _securing_ them.  They kept a fake knife in their archives, which I used to "revive" myself in front of them.  They never tested if the knife was a prop.  If anything Torchwood was good for, it was being completely stupid."

I bent my right leg and pulled the knife out of its holster for the first time.  It felt great.  I adjusted the knife in my hands and dangled it over the man's body.  I slid out of my boots and put them by the window of the flat.  Can't have the cops matching boot prints all over Cardiff.

"Today I'm feeling a bit generous."

The man's eyes widened.  I think he thought I was going to tell him he was freed.

"I'm not going to stab you like most of my other kills.  No.  I'm taking trophies today.  A piece of your skin.  I didn't have time to collect trophies from John Blackman—I think that's his name—or Janet Scott.  But I'm going to take your skin while you'll be bleeding to death.  Isn't that nice?"

The man screamed again.

"Hush," I said as I was straddling him.  "It'll all be over in a few minutes."

I took a patch off the man's right breast and put it in a jar with water in it.  One of my assistants would take the skin for me and take it to my new home in London.  Then I alternated between cutting lines in the man's flesh and peeling off his skin.  In the middle of me bleeding the Jack Harkness lookalike to death, I dipped my fingers in his blood and painted my face with it.  Without the aid of a mirror, I drew tiger stripes on my face, grinning as I did so.  The man's eyes looked like they were going to pop out without me popping them. 

Finally the man died in my bed.  Of course the eyes had to go—pop, pop.  And then I cleaned up and slept in my guest bed naked.  It was actually more comfortable than the bed in the master bedroom. 

 

The next day, at work, the Commander was not in his office that morning.  Finally, I could see where the hell Torchwood Three went by hacking on his computer.

I was pleased with what I discovered.

According to Ianto, Toshiko was shot by Jack's brother (he had a brother?) Gray.  She died within minutes.  The wound she had was non-fatal, but quiet Tosh, she hid the injury until she died from it.  What a trooper.  Owen was killed outside a place called the Pharm by a Doctor Aaron Copley.  But then he was revived by the _other_ fake resurrection glove, which I hid in a church, and apparently only Jack and I knew about the glove.  I laughed while reading the report.  Owen was probably alive all along, but Torchwood was so dense they thought he was dead for several months.  How he survived those months supposedly without eating or drinking I'll never know.  I'm thinking he _did_ eat, but he blocked it from his mind, especially after being shot.  And I'm guessing Torchwood never saw him eat or drink after getting shot.  Oh, well, at least a Martha Jones got a temporary job at Torchwood over it, and at least she had the common sense to leave before Torchwood could kill her.

However Owen actually survived being shot, he was finally killed by radioactive wastes.  Well, you can't come back from _that._

Gwen's alive, but she's somewhere north and west of Cardiff, hiding from the government.  It would've been nice to kill her, but I doubt she'll come to London or she'll be arrested by the government.  Besides, she's a mum now.  I've already taken the life of another mum out of necessity.  I'll leave Rhys, Gwen and her daughter in peace.  She's as good as dead now to me, anyway.  But if she _does s_ tep in London, even to pick up toys for her daughter, I'll probably show no mercy for her.

Jack's disappeared from the earth.  Good.  That bastard shouldn't come back again anytime soon.  I'll forever see him as a child murderer.  This sick freak was encouraging me to have children, and here's this guy, who not only has a secret daughter, he has a secret _grandson._   He killed his own grandson to save Earth from the 456.  I swore if this bastard appeared in my life again, I'd cut all his limbs off and force him to grow them again like a starfish.  I grew so mad I was about to black out at the computer, but I took a deep breath and moved on.

There were also some new files on me on the computer.  I destroyed the new files, logged off the computer and set out to grab the Commander some lunch.  _Back to the secretarial grind,_ I thought, and sighed.

However, the thought of Jack murdering his grandson distracted me from getting lunch for the Commander, and instead of grabbing that, I ended up talking to DI Cutler. I flirted with him a bit and invited him to some party in Cardiff that night (that I just heard about that morning).

He knew about the murders.  Through getting the Commander a cup of coffee, I found out he had hair samples before and after I had cut my hair.  That meant Cutler had to be disposed of like the others.  I called my assistants and told them to do some killing for me while I distracted Cutler for the night.

 

Turns out the party was for the city filling up the Hub (with cement, what else) and fixing the water fountain in the Plass.  What a dumb reason to have a party.  I could see the city celebrating the reopening of the Pierhead Building the following year, but repairing the Plass before it was fixed?  I could've killed someone that night.  Oh well, I went along with it.  I needed to see how to ensnare Cutler in my trap.  The black dress I was wearing was a part of that.  The sex, if I could at least get Cutler to fuck me that night, would be another part. 

I flirted with Cutler.  I eventually learned that, because of my file deleting skills, the police thought the military destroyed the evidence on the real serial killer/s in Cardiff.  I wasn’t expecting _that_ result.  At least my assistants and I could kill any witnesses to Suzie Costello in Torchwood while the police and the military were at odds.

I lied to Cutler and made up some Richard Ayoade stereotype that destroyed my files in the Commander's computer.  Then, finally, that moron took me to his house for sex.

The text message that went out as Cutler and I went home to all my assistants was CHLOROFOAM, SWANSEA, INCINERATE.  SC.

As Cutler and I took a cab home, engaging in some heavy foreplay before we arrived at his flat, the assistants kidnapped as many people that possibly knew me and stuffed them in a van.  They were all driven to Swansea to meet their deaths.  I even encouraged them to leave some I REMEMBER messages around the city, to drive home the fake message of this darkness enveloping Cardiff and swallowing people to its Hell.  All while I was fucking Cutler in his own home!  I made sure Jim gave all those lovely assistants bonuses after this massacre, and he did.

 

In bed with Cutler, I learned that he, just like a shitload of people in Cardiff, was drugged with Retcon.  He started telling me what he knew about Torchwoods One and Three.

The sex with Cutler was great, just like the sex with the Jack Harkness impersonator was great.  But Cutler had to die.  I needed a scenario first.

As Cutler went back to sleep, I had it: A disappearance. Time to tell the boys (except for a police mole to check on the Commander) to pack up and especially grab anything of importance in my bloody flat. Especially my shoes and knife. Cutler was all mine.

 

In my 12 hour "absence," according to my mole, the Commander was accused of deleting my file.  I don't think he was ever arrested or jailed, just forced into retirement.  Pity.  Eh, he was a sexist bastard anyway.  Cutler also pieced together that I was associated with the three suicides not linked to the second Swansea sweep, as I'll call it. 

I laughed.  From beginning to end, this massacre went without any major problems.  It was the best murder spree I ever had.

I wrapped my face up in a headscarf, being careful to hide that nose of mine, put on some sunglasses, headed to a Tesco Metro in a cab for scissors and hair dye of some sort, and went to work.

 

When I arrived in the Hub, I found a container of slush powder alongside my wax dummy lookalike that Jim had made for me.  He knew I would need that dummy someday.  The slush powder, like the knife, was attached with a note with a smiley face and JM. 

I wasn't expecting a change of clothes in the Hub, though.  Jim had also left me a trench coat, shirt, skirt, all Vivienne Westwood, like Jim likes to wear.  He also left me my Ralph Lauren hunting boots _and_ the UK Special Forces knife he gave me in the deposit box.  I could see the blood drying on it.  There was a note on the knife this time, and it had words on it.

_Colonel,_

_Heard about the successful campaign.  A lot of blood on your hands and you managed to get a swatch of a man's skin.  It's everything I want to do when I threaten to kill someone and make them into shoes.  Maybe you can help me make those shoes._

_I brought you your shoes and left them in this underground shithole.  If you haven't gotten a text from him yet, I suggested this "DI Tom Cutler" you've been telling your assistants about should come to this shithole.  Save me a part of him.  I'd like to meet him, even if he's dead._

_And make sure you get out by 10:30, because that's when the cops will blow this shithole up!_

_:)_

 

I didn't switch out of the clothes until I was done cutting and dyeing the wax doll with whatever water I could find in the Hub.  As I was done dying the doll, I received a text from Cutler saying he'd meet me in the Hub by 10.  I giggled.

I cut the doll's eyes out with a knife and dropped slush powder in the eye sockets.  If you're not aware, slush powder quickly absorbs water, making a gel-like substance.  Magicians use it often in their acts to harden water.  Put a dash of powder in the eye sockets, and voila, gel.  It's supposed to look like the vitreous gel in eyeballs.  Gotta keep that legend alive, you know.

 

"And here we are." I gestured to the Vault.  I checked my watch.  It was 10:15 PM.  Fifteen minutes, enough time to waltz up the tourist office entrance.

"You orchestrated this whole massacre," DI Cutler said.  "All so your ex-co-workers wouldn't kill you.  But the irony is most of them are dead, and the two that would want you dead are MIA."

I nodded.  "Isn't it wonderful?"

"And I made the police think an alien force killed all those people!"

"Uh, Tom?  That _was_ the point of the murders.  Are you watching too much _X-Files?_ "

"No.  What you did was sick.  These innocent people died with their blood on your hands just so you could live."

"What can I say, DI Cutler?  I love to see people suffer.  The fear in their eyes when they run away from me.  The panic before I stick my knife in them.  And I'm proud whenever my assistants complete my kills for me.  It makes me feel powerful, like I'm a goddess, like I'm Kali, collecting the heads of men killed in war.  That's why I hunt, I kill.  That's why I consider myself a great hunter.  I know how to tranquilize..." 

I picked up a piece of debris from the first Hub bombing.  I bumped my head with it.  It left a little scratch on my forehead.  I was lucky it didn't bash my brain in.  I broke Cutler's legs with the debris.  Cutler screamed. 

"I know how to tranquilize my prey.  Through lies, through sex."

I took out my knife and hastily blinded Cutler.

"They submit to my will, they fall in my trap and they get caught.  That's what a great hunter does."

I pulled Cutler's tongue out of his mouth and cut it off with the knife.  I dropped it in my Tesco Metro bag and tucked it in my trench coat.  I threw my dummy on top of him. 

"You won't need _that_ any more.  Can't stay, gotta go.  Don't want to get blown up."

By 10:30, I was standing near the Senedd building, watching the Hub explode for a second time.  And my knife was still attached to my boot!  I knew that knife and I were going to be good friends. 

Then I got another text.

JACK HARKNESS

I'm watching you from

the roof of the

Millennium Centre.  You

didn't die.  I'm coming for

you, Suzie Costello, for

the VERY last and final

time.  I promise.

 

_Jack Harkness?_ Why in the hell was he here to make sure I was dead?  And how did he get my number?  Fucking child murderer.  At least I murdered grown adults, the prick.  I didn't know how in the hell I was going to get on the top of the bloody Millennium Centre, but I had to find him.  This would be our final showdown, and I didn't care if I was actually going to die or not.  I just wanted to see his face bashed into the Plass's pavement.

I waited until the debris and smoke subsided from the Hub.  I hid my face the best way I could with my trench coat and went to the Millenium Centre. 

 

A few bribes and some sneaking around in the Millennium Centre later and I made it to the roof of the Centre in front of the waterfall, overlooking the rubble in the Plass.  There was a man in a greatcoat standing on the ledge.  He didn't turn around, but I knew something was wrong.  For one, his hair was in a much, much different style than Jack's.  He also seemed a bit shorter than Jack. 

I walked slowly behind Jack, or who I thought was Jack.  The man in the greatcoat turned around.

"Tell Suzie I'm coming for her," he said in what had to be the worst interpretation of an American accent ever.  It wasn't Jack.  It was Jim!

We stopped hugging.  "Well done, Colonel.  I see you've gotten a new cut and colour.  Looks good on you."

 "I missed you so much, Jim.  I wish you would've killed with me."

"And ruin the Westwood?  No.  It's suffocating under this fucking coat already.  You can ruin your own Westwood."

"Thanks for the gifts, Jim."

"Only my best employees get Westwood.  The others get Primark.  I wish I could organize something that could petrify a city for a few days like you can.  London's too big, though.  I'll probably have to start smaller, like Dublin."  He looked at my forehead.  "What happened to your head?"

"Oh, I hit it on a piece of the Hub when I was killing Cutler."

"Oh, let Jim kiss that boo boo for you.  But I want to see what you kept for Cutler."

I showed him the tongue in the Tesco bag.  Jim's eyes grew large.

"His _tongue?_ That's beautiful, Suzie."  He kissed the cut on my head.  "I'm going to need to take you home.  I'm still thinking about that naughty poem you wrote about killing that first guy."

 

Jim and I made out in his private car he rented to take us to the Cardiff Airport.  From there, we'd hop in his private plane and the two of us would fly back to London, where we'd live together in the Westbury Mayfair.  There were other things to be taken care of later, namely an article written by Richard Brook and Susanne Davidson about the ex-Torchwood Three member who came back from the dead and consumed nearly everyone she met with the darkness that blackened her brown eyes.  She found an alien device and killed a paedophile after she had the device sewn in her body in an attempt to raise the dead with a gauntlet.  Eventually she became the ferryman to Hell.  But in the end, love redeems all.  The revenant is consumed by the darkness she was carrying in her body, taking her lover with her.  (I think our account's actually been turned into a _non-fictional_ book!)  The _Daily Mail_ bit at the story and the rest of the newspapers, even respectable papers like the _Guardian,_ fell for it.  But at that moment, all I needed was Jim.

Jim is dangerous.  I am dangerous.  But, somehow in that moment driving away from Bute Place for the last time in my life (or at least at this moment in my life) I felt calm.  I wasn't angry at anything—not at Torchwood, not at my father, nothing.  The pain slipped away as Jim was stroking my hair.  It had been a long time since I saw him.  I wasn't going to let that opportunity pass me by.  I gave Jim a kiss with plenty of tongue.  Then we started taking each other's clothes off.

"Driver," Jim said to his chauffeur, "can you drive as _slow_ as you can?  This woman is under emotional duress and needs to be healed."

 

* * *

Reprinted from  _Suzie Costello: Life is All_ by Susan Harper by arrangement with Ghost Light Books UK, Copyright (c) 2013.

* * *

 

SUSAN HARPER, the owner of the Bagatelle Club, lives in London with her daughter and her partner.  She's often mistaken for looking and even sounding like the real life Suzie Costello, but she insists it's just a coincidence.  It doesn't help that they were both born in Bath on the same day.

**Author's Note:**

> In general, this story is based on _Long Time Dead_ by Sarah Pinborough. It's an official (possibly non-canonical) tie-in novel that is set before Torchwood's Miracle Day but after a month after the events of Children of Earth. A lot of the novel's events appear in this story, but have been remixed. No monetary gain is intended with this short story.
> 
> The short story is written in the first person by an AU Suzie who faked all her suicide/assassination attempts. Suzie, some assistants and eventually Jim go to Cardiff, actually commit murders, and well after Jim's death, Suzie publishes her memoirs in book form under an alias (a variant of her first name + Harper, after Owen Harper), very much like Sebastian Moran did in Doyle canon (minus the alias). 
> 
> ***
> 
> Photos have been removed (4 September 2017) because the people running Photobucket are greedy dicks. Sorry all!


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